Explain Tibet to me

[DSeid]

I understand that Tibet has a long cultural history with varying levels of autonomy from and de facto control by China. I also understand that the history of China is one of uniting (by force) a variety of disparate cultural groups.

So China took complete control of Tibet in 1959 and Tibetans suffered as perhaps even more than most of the rest of China during the years of the Cultural Revolution. Recent years have seen somewhat better economic times as a result of Chinese rule but also a concerted effort to diminish Tibetan heritage and identity.

The Dalai Lama wants to submit to Chinese rule so long as they have cultural and religious autonomy. Many younger Tibetans want full independence. They’ve used the stage of the Olympics to call attention to their cause. A few protests were violent. The Chinese authorities brook protests poorly; the response was heavy-handed.

And the world should support this particular separatist/independence movement based on cultural and religious identity because? This is a more worthy movement than the Basque separatist one or the Kurdish one in Turkey and Iraq or a host of others because?

A few media darlings like it cause they like Buddhism? Or why?

[Intravenus_De_Milo]

What I think a lot of people don’t realize is that when China “invaded” Tibet in 1959, it wasn’t as if they were seizing completely new territory; Tibet had already been under Chinese rule since I think the late imperial era or perhaps the very start of the DRC. What China DID do in 1959 was come in and say that Tibetan culture was basically not allowed any more, and proceeded to destroy many important religious sites there. A more modern issue in the minds of many Tibetans is that, in their view, China is making it too simple for ethnic Han Chinese to settle in Tibet and further the erosion of Tibetan culture. The catch-22 here is that, well, you can’t exactly tell all the Han Chinese to leave even if Tibet DID become fully independent, because there are a few million of them.

I suspect that if China was NOT actively trying to dissipate Tibetan culture, then the situation might be viewed differently on the world stage. But evidence suggests that this IS their aim, and that’s what at least the Dalai Lama’s caused is directed towards.

FWIW, I think the Kurdish separatist movement was a lot more prevalent in the minds of many Westerners before Saddam Hussein’s execution than it is today, since Saddam’s atrocities towards them were well-documented. Now that he’s gone…well…the Kurds are not the only persecuted Iraqis anymore…

[Measure_for_Measure]

@DSeid

The Dalai Lama wants to submit to Chinese rule so long as they have cultural and religious autonomy. …

And the world should support this particular separatist/independence movement based on cultural and religious identity because? This is a more worthy movement than the Basque separatist one or the Kurdish one in Turkey and Iraq or a host of others because?

1. IMO, your question is answered by the first quoted sentence.

Calls for independence leave me skeptical. But Tibetans are arguably only asking for human rights (or possibly federalism and local control at most).

Ok then, do the Tibetians have a better claim on worthiness than your typical jailed Chinese dissident? That is less clear to me.

2. As a separate matter, I’m somewhat fond of Tibetan Buddhism. As always, YMMV.

3. FTR only, Tibet enjoyed a period of independence between WWI and WWII. Answers about Tibet

[elelle]

Here’s one timeline, granted , from a Tibetan sympathetic source. But, it’s historical fact that the Chinese were brutal in their occupation of Tibet. They destroyed the culture by decimating age old monasteries, executing and imprisoning the educated bearers of the culture; priests and doctors, and reducing the population to frightened prisoners, afraid to speak out at all. If you want to engage a population in joining your society, this certainly wasn’t the feelgood method.

If this kind of takeover happened here, it wouldn’t be tolerated for a millisecond. It does receive attention because of the great wealth of Buddhist culture, which the Tibetans have been generous in sharing with the West in their forced diaspora. Buddhism is quite pragmatic in it’s adaptation, and very incisive in viewing temporal setbacks in terms of truth known. The Dalai Lama is a great example of trying to make it work without violence.

Younger Tibetans are wanting more, now that they see how the world works. And they should speak up, as any of us would faced with extreme injustice.

Not more or less than any other injustice, but now, when China is onstage with the Olympics, it’s a time that the particular Tibetan situation can get some understanding.

[elelle]

I have to say, correcting myself with the “if it happened here” factor:

I remember attending a performance of the Sera Je Monastery(India) Tibetan monks, in the 90’s, a full auditorium at the performance of Tibetan cultural arts. Dance and chanting, the monks doing their best to have people understand their culture and cause. At the end, one monk came up onstage to ask for support for Tibet. As usual, quite softspoken and simply asking for understanding,;please help us.

At the time, what came up in my mind was; Good yikes, this has happened here, too, with Native Americans. That was the same invasive genocide tactics. True.

Food for thought, and food for getting the hell over it. Please listen to the Tibetan cause.

[DSeid]

Thank you for the responses. Measure for Measure certainly religious and cultural autonomy seems reasonable to me, but such is very much out of step with the history of China. China itself was formed by the forced imposition of a dominant culture over many others. That unitary identity was often maintained with some level of force. Modern China has not been all so open to any religion. Chinese Catholics are forbidden from communication with the Vatican and Chinese bishops are appointed by the Chinese government. Protestants are also under tight control and Moslems closely monitored. You are I am sure aware of the circumstance of the Falun Gong.

Granting religious and cultural autonomy to Tibet would be something that no other group has been able to get, to the best of my knowledge. There is no precedence and it would be a very scary step to most in charge there.

elelle you are correct that Tibetan cultural life and the infrastructure of such cultural life was horribly destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. Maybe they had it worse than the rest of China but damn all intellectual and cultural life was being destroyed then all over. Across the country many many suffered horribly. Tibetan culture had been labeled as a serfdom model. Maybe it was targeted especially hard.

But right now I do not understand how Tibetan religious culture is getting it much worse than most other religious groups or dissident voices in China. Or are more deserving than other oppressed minorities in other countries. I remain open to further understanding.

[elelle]

DSeid, gotchya with what you’ve said. Particularly, Tibetan Buddhism is very appealing to Western minds now, because it is a very rational approach to spiritual queries, and, the Tibetan diaspora has so many really great teachers who have found a home in the West now. They are quite willing to teach to Westerners. Tibet was very isolated for the past century, but, in diaspora, high lamas who wouldn’t otherwise be availaible are now teaching in the west. As religious thought is usually conducted, this is really amazing. What was not available to most “average” people is taught now, to a foreign population. I know that I have been taught Buddhist practices by asking, that would have only been taught in much more closeted terms 50 years ago. I can only say that it is generousity, grateful for it, but, Tibetan Lamas are actively are doing that now, for best reasons.

And, so, no more than other minorities at all, except that Tibetans have been sharing their culture in the West since the 70’s, and it has taken because it works, and has a lot to offer. Tibetan teachers have come to the West and taught what they know. It resonates, and they’ve gained groups around the teachers who work to want to know more. Simple as that.

Glad to answer further questions as best I can.

[dropzone]

What is the appeal of Tibet? I mean, it and Kashmir make lovely buffers with India, if anybody might want one, but the buffer goes both ways! “Holding the high ground” is a nice thought, but what if the high ground is THAT high? And a shithole? Save money and worldwide respect and leave it independant or let India occupy it–who the f**k cares? China wouldn’t even need spy satellites; Nepal would squeak if India made a move against it and that’s another impassable shithole. A trillion Chinese would be there in a wink.

I heard something today that someone had the bright idea to carry the Olympic torch to the top of Mt Everest. I assume oxygen tanks would be included. Abe Simpson Aside in Honor of Our David Simmons, Also a Bomber Pilot: The only way my father could smoke on a mission was to feed the cigarette with his oxygen mask. They burned real fast so the torch people may want to crank down the O[sub]2[/sub].

[Measure_for_Measure]

@DSeid

Granting religious and cultural autonomy to Tibet would be something that no other group has been able to get, to the best of my knowledge. There is no precedence and it would be a very scary step to most in charge there.

Yes, aside from my fondness of Tibetan culture (not that I know much about it, to be frank), I can’t see much light between the oppressed Buddhists and the oppressed Chinese Protestants, etc. I suppose there’s the cultural survival issue – but the Tibetan diaspora is reasonably intact, which is a significant offsetting factor.

There’s a power-politics angle though. Tibetan oppression discourages talk of reunification with Taiwan. Those in charge can’t like that either.

Potentially, I suspect that some deal could be struck. One way or another China has to transition towards a more democratic structure, as this is one of the things that middle class societies tend to like. Current international Tibetan protests have the benefit of making all the right people appear ridiculous.

…Or are more deserving than other oppressed minorities in other countries.

C’mon. I can’t muster any sympathy at all for the Basques, or any other group that wants independence from a pre-existing democratic system – at the point of a gun. Too many independence movements resemble scam operations to this observer, placing tribal affiliations above more important concerns such as democracy and economic development.

[appleciders]

@dropzone

What is the appeal of Tibet? I mean, it and Kashmir make lovely buffers with India, if anybody might want one, but the buffer goes both ways! “Holding the high ground” is a nice thought, but what if the high ground is THAT high? And a shithole? Save money and worldwide respect and leave it independant or let India occupy it–who the f**k cares? China wouldn’t even need spy satellites; Nepal would squeak if India made a move against it and that’s another impassable shithole. A trillion Chinese would be there in a wink.

I heard something today that someone had the bright idea to carry the Olympic torch to the top of Mt Everest. I assume oxygen tanks would be included. Abe Simpson Aside in Honor of Our David Simmons, Also a Bomber Pilot: The only way my father could smoke on a mission was to feed the cigarette with his oxygen mask. They burned real fast so the torch people may want to crank down the O[sub]2[/sub].

Tibet has massive uranium deposits, which China may eventually need for nuclear power or weapons.

[jjimm]

It’s almost impossible to get a nuanced argument about the Tibetan situation, on either side. I posted this the other day but the posts that surround it appear to be firmly in the “Tibet = Wonderful” camp.

Further, I wrote the following after a trip to Lhasa, Shigatse, Gyantse and Everest Base Camp in 2005:

I liked Tibet. I didn’t love Tibet. Maybe that’s a negative reflection on me, failing to discover what many people have done before me. Perhaps it’s because I read “Tibet Tibet”, or I’m just too cynical, but I don’t see the culture as something magical, or the religion as anything too special. The environment is breathtakingly, mindblowingly, beautiful in parts, but it’s an atrociously harsh environment, and many of its people are clinging to survival. Yet, for tradition, they make unbelievable journeys and sacrifices to perform acts worship. Some may see this as laudable spirituality, but it’s clear that many of them don’t know why they’re worshipping - they just do it as a function of their life - just a superstition. The religion is rebuilding itself after its suppression, but it is no paragon, infiltrated by the government and prone to corruption and opulence while its adherents scrape by at subsistence level.

As for the Chinese, what the hell do they want with the place? It’s a gigantic spiky desert up in the air. I guess they can exploit mineral resources (and no doubt the future holds the prospect of Himalayas bearing the scars of quarrying, as do many of the hills in China), as well as the “minority” culture of Lhasa, especially when the new train arrives. It’s also a geopolitical buffer between China and Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, part of the Great Game. The history of the intertwined nations has been distorted horrendously by the Chinese, but also by Tibet-in-exile - which also counter-claims huge chunks of ethnically Tibetan China - and propagandised westerners like Richard Gere.

The Chinese had no right to invade, the disastrous collectivisation of the nomads and farmers, and the mass killings and societal devastation of the Cultural Revolution, were unforgiveable crimes, but again consider that the government may be taking the long view: Tibet once conquered China as far as Xi’an; the Mongol emperors worked with Tibet and its religion to suppress the whole of China. This still doesn’t excuse the Chinese government’s recent behaviour, and the bullshit propaganda that they promote (Tibetans fighting British invaders in the early 20th century were “defending the motherland”), but don’t forget that many of those complicit in what has happened are as Tibetan as the Dalai Lama. There’s always going to be dissent - nobody on earth wants to be governed by an invader - but the Chinese government is never going to leave. One may only hope that somehow the dissent gets filtered into self-governance within the Chinese imperial sphere.

And how well is the Chinese government doing? They’ve managed to outnumber Tibetans with Han Chinese in major conurbations, and these people aren’t going to go anywhere soon. Though crudely and apparently dismissive of the culture in which they found themselves, they’re good businessmen and clearly stimulate the local economy. The government supposedly provides education for all, though it doesn’t seem to have had a huge effect - if seeing Tibetans use calculators to add 10 to 5 (and re-check the result), or subtract 50 from 100, or the woeful lack of initiative also evident in China, is anything to go by. The roads, while appalling, at least exist now, and the plan appears to be to improve them. Electric power exists in many places, and irrigation. Is this a good thing? I maintain that it is, subject to the avoidance of irreversible environmental destruction. Yes, it will change lifestyles, and probably the culture, irreparably, but don’t these people, scratching their way on the surface of the earth, deserve better? We spoke to orphanage workers who said that many of the “orphans” they care for are actually disabled children, abandoned by their nomad parents as there are no resources, nor cultural imperative, to keep them alive. Don’t they deserve better?

As for tourists - the Tibetans are undeniably friendly, moreso than the Chinese. But it seems to me that they neither need us nor want us. The tourist dollar won’t trickle down for a very long time in most places, if at all. We’re merely a hopefully benign distraction while people get on with other things.

Tibet strikes me as a nation that just wants to be left alone to get on with things, but the history of internal Tibetan politics shows that reform was much needed before the Chinese turned up.

[smiling_bandit]

@DSeid

Thank you for the responses. Measure for Measure certainly religious and cultural autonomy seems reasonable to me, but such is very much out of step with the history of China. China itself was formed by the forced imposition of a dominant culture over many others. That unitary identity was often maintained with some level of force.

Actually, not really. Chinese culture spread through willing contact and intermingling; it was a very wide-spread culture a very long time ago. While conquest played a small part, overall it expanded as new states and regions, which long held similar cultural origins, joined the party. it was maintained as a single state through force, sometimes a lot of it.

Modern China has not been all so open to any religion. Chinese Catholics are forbidden from communication with the Vatican and Chinese bishops are appointed by the Chinese government. Protestants are also under tight control and Moslems closely monitored. You are I am sure aware of the circumstance of the Falun Gong.

Well, one step at a time, I guess.

Tibetan culture had been labeled as a serfdom model. Maybe it was targeted especially hard.

Tibet at the time wasn’t a pretty place. But while bad, it was not arguably worse than most other Third World Nations, and I couldn’t honestly say it was worse than China itself at the time.

[jimmmy]

@DSeid

And the world should support this particular separatist/independence movement based on cultural and religious identity because? This is a more worthy movement than the Basque separatist one or the Kurdish one in Turkey and Iraq or a host of others because?

A few media darlings like it cause they like Buddhism? Or why?

If you conceptualize it like this there isn’t really a good answer.

Certainly the Tibetans are no more worthy of cultural and religious freedom than any other group on Earth today. I think what we see is, as you observe, a) there is mainstream media special love for Tibet but also: b) Conservatives view China through a Cold War prism and the West writ large has grown up conditioned to understand exactly what they see as happening (i.e. an Atheistic Communist Government oppressing religious people and trying to stamp out their culture) c) Academics & Activists love the non-violence of the Nobel-Prize winning Tibetan Leader (MSM too) .

I think you point out a disconnect and a problem - but the problem isn’t that Tibet is getting too much attention but that other, good movements aren’t getting any:

*The world should support this particular separatist/independence movement based on cultural and religious identity. This is a worthy movement that other movement like the Basque separatist one or the Kurdish one in Turkey and Iraq or a host of others but has more attention than they do, which isn’t totally logical or fair.
*

[DSeid]

Well I understand that this a convenient time to protest what with China being on the public stage and all. And I can understand that many Westerners admire the culture based on their exposure to Buddhist philosophies (albeit often pop culture filtered as they may be) and therefore feel some identification with Tibetans. And I even understand having some respect for the methods and goals as articulated by the Dalai Lama, non-violent protest preferred and not asking for anything that doesn’t seem like basic human rights to most of us in the West.

I just have a hard time using most of those as ethical metrics by which to judge what cause to support and which to relatively ignore. And let’s be real - most of us mainly ignore most of the world’s injustices.

Does any country hosting the Olympics need to accept that any policies that others disagree with will be fodder for focus if they host the games? If we were hosting this year should we have expected calls for boycotts over our Iraq policies since much of the world objects?

Ethically is it correct to grade our level of protest to how much we identify with the “oppressed”? More like us or more that we respect and identify with the image we have of them, and we should object more, less like us, or less that we identify with them anyway - nah, too “other”, not worth bothering with. (This issue in particular is my biggest problem.)

Is the worthiness of a cause elevated or diminished because of the means used to call attention to it?

[Measure_for_Measure]

@DSeid

Does any country hosting the Olympics need to accept that any policies that others disagree with will be fodder for focus if they host the games? If we were hosting this year should we have expected calls for boycotts over our Iraq policies since much of the world objects?

Great nations should expect to receive this sort of c**p, and it’s a Good Thing that China is learning about this. They are likely, after all, to be the preeminent power in 2070.

Ethically is it correct to grade our level of protest to how much we identify with the “oppressed”? More like us or more that we respect and identify with the image we have of them, and we should object more, less like us, or less that we identify with them anyway - nah, too “other”, not worth bothering with. (This issue in particular is my biggest problem.)

Look. (I always like starting posts with that sentence.) Tibet isn’t Darfur. It isn’t even Iraq. But it’s not celebrity gossip either. And IM(ignorant)O, it’s not freaking Basque, never mind Quebec.

Furthermore within Buddhism, Tibet did produce a number of philosophical innovations. I’m not too happy that the Romans sacked the library of Alexandria (albeit over several centuries), and I wouldn’t be enamored if bezerk nationalists decided to trash the University of Edinburgh (not that it’s likely). So the matter of fighting ignorance is relevant in this context, though again the Tibetan diaspora does a pretty good job of maintaining the discipline. Finally while they do espouse nonviolence, Tibetan philosophy isn’t limited to that stance.

[dropzone]

@appleciders

Tibet has massive uranium deposits, which China may eventually need for nuclear power or weapons.

[Emily Littella] Oh, that’s very different.

Never mind! [Emily Littella]

[dropzone]

@Measure for Measure

Great nations should expect to receive this sort of c**p, and it’s a Good Thing that China is learning about this.

I agree. They’re still thinking like it was a thousand years ago and they were the biggest dog in the neighborhood and could be self-sufficient, but now they are getting too entwined in the world to just close up and pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist–where would the money for their BMWs come from if they did? And yeah, if that means they have to learn to take pinpricks to their honor stoically it’s a good thing. After a while one of the pinpricks will mean no new 750Li this year and maybe some change will happen.